Nets rode emotions to Game 3 victory over Raptors

Nets' Paul Pierce, driving during the second half of Game 3, brings playoff experience and toughness.

EAST RUTHERFORD — In one uncharacteristic moment, Deron Williams showed everyone that things are different this time of year.
After getting fouled by Kyle Lowry in the first half of Friday’s Game 3 win, Williams took exception after nearly being knocked to the floor.

“I was just going to the free throw line,” Williams said, with a smile. “Just got up a little fast, faster than normal.”

Then came the truth.

“It was definitely an emotional game for us,” Williams said. “It was a big game for us, being our first game at home in the playoffs and we know the importance of every game, every possession, so it was definitely a lot of emotions over the course of the game and that’s just how it goes.”

The playoffs are no time to worry about hurt feelings or being cordial. The goal is to advance, and if someone or something gets in the way, you quickly get up and let them know it’s not OK.

“They’re being physical with us,” Williams said, “so we’ve go to be physical back. That’s how the playoffs are and that’s how they work.”

That’s why the Nets were so intense, and so physical in their Game 3 win over the Raptors on Friday night. And with the Game 4 stakes so high — the Nets have the chance to seize a commanding 3-1 lead in this best-of-seven, first-round series — it’s only going get more intense tonight.

“It’s a dogfight out there,” Shaun Livingston said. “Everybody is banged up and bruised up. But it’s not really time to feel sorry for anybody. We are trying to win a series, so we are going to do what we’ve got to do.”

Kevin Garnett sparked the team in the second quarter, when he dove after a loose ball. He rose from the ground, tugging on his jersey, holding the ball and screaming things that aren’t safe for a TV broadcast or a family newspaper.

“I don’t really know,” Garnett said when asked what was going through his mind at that moment. “I blacked out at that point. I have a kid at the games, being an example, a role model. All that goes out the door. I’m playing at heart at that point, my passion, I’m playing off the crowd — my friends are there, my teammates … I’m just going. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m going.”

At 37, Garnett is not the player he once was, but that moment seemed to provide the Nets with an emotional spark. A few minutes later, Williams got in Lowry’s face, and the battle lines were drawn.

Garnett’s hustle play also sparked the crowd, which was borderline catatonic for most of the first half of the first playoff game in Brooklyn this season.

“Yeah it was a little slow to start” Williams said. “Seven o’clock game on a Friday night in New York, that’s tough.

But once the Nets picked up their intensity in the second quarter, the crowd did as well.

“Could do better,” Garnett said of the fans. “I was expecting Brooklyn to be real hostile, New York style, knowing what it’s like to come here as the opposition, so our crowd could do better. But they were there when they needed them and we fed off of them.”